Parsee chicken with apricots
Gorgeously sweet and sour and very easy to put together. Traditionally this is served with potato straws, but I like it with brown rice and raita.
Ingrediënten
- 2 whole dried Kashmiri chillies
- 5 cm 2in cinnamon stick, slightly broken up
- 2 tsp cumin seeds
- seeds from 4 cardamom pods
- 8 skinless bone-in chicken thighs
- 3 cm 1¼in root ginger, peeled and grated
- 4 garlic cloves grated
- 2 tbsp sunflower or groundnut oil
- 2 large onions thinly sliced
- 150 g 5½oz tomatoes, chopped
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- ½ tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp garam masala
- 150 g 5½oz dried apricots, very roughly chopped
- 3 tbsp white wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp jaggery or soft dark brown sugar
- salt and pepper
- chopped mint or coriander leaves to serve
- toasted flaked almonds to serve (optional)
Instructies
- Put the whole spices into a frying pan and toast them over a medium heat for two minutes.
- Grind, either in a mortar and pestle or a small food processor.
- Put the chicken in a bowl and add half the spice blend and half the ginger and garlic.
- Rub this well into the chicken, cover, refrigerate and marinate for an hour (if you have time you can leave it overnight and cook the next day).
- Bring it to room temperature before cooking.
- Heat the oil in a sauté pan and brown the chicken until it has a good colour on both sides.
- Remove the chicken and set aside.
- Cook the onions in the same pan until they are golden brown; this will take some time but you need it for both taste and colour.
- Stir in the tomatoes and cook for another five minutes, then add the remaining ginger and garlic, the rest of the toasted spice blend and the ground coriander, turmeric and garam masala and cook for two minutes, stirring from time to time.
- Return the chicken to the pan together with any juices that have run out of it, pour in 200ml (7fl oz) of water and add the apricots, vinegar and jaggery or sugar.
- Season with salt and pepper.
- Bring to the boil, cover, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
- If the mixture seems to be getting too dry as it cooks, add a little more water, but don’t drown it as the final dish should be thick and jammy.
- If it seems a bit thin at the end of the cooking time, remove the chicken, boil the liquid to reduce it, then return the chicken and heat it through again.
- Serve scattered with the herbs and the almonds (if using).
